--- On Wed, 7/1/09, Marv Gandall <marvgandall at videotron.ca> wrote:
> Part of the anticapitalist intelligensia since the
> Industrial Revolution has
> always had a soft spot for the peasantry and a particular
> contempt for the
> bourgeoisie in the cities, including those most like
> themselves. They have
> idealized rather than lamented "the idiocy of rural life",
> and identified
> the cities with capitalism and liberal individualism. Where
> you stand on the
> recent elections turns, IMO, on whether you primarily view
> the Islamic
> regime and Ahmadinejad government as representing rural
> backwardness at it's
> worst - superstitious, ignorant, patriarchal,
> authoritarian, and cruel - or
> as representing traditional "populist" values, and as being
> on the front
> line against US imperialism. It has combined all of these
> elements.
>
[WS:] An excellent point, indeed. Similar reactions could be observed toward the murderous regime of Pol Pot and his ruralist utopia, and also Mao Tse tung and his lip service to the rural way of life.
Barrington Moore coined the term "catonism" to denote the lip service to "peasant values and way of life threatened by modern decadence" paid by the most reactionary elements of society (landowners) in times of systemic transformation or modernization of the economy. For the landowners, this was basically a defensive strategy of re-directing popular discontent to scapegoats (not much different from anti- Semitism in economically backward Eastern Europe.)
However, espousing "catonist" sentiments by anti-capitalist intelligentsia is more difficult to understand. After all, they have no class interests whatsoever in defending the fake rural utopias, let alone bloody dictators who make the assault on urban intelligentsia a key priority of their political programmes.
I can think of two possible explanations. One is based on the 'social origins' of the intelligentsia or its part. For example, in the 19th century Poland small gentry landowners (the szlachta) were pushed off the land by big magnates and moved to the cities where they were employed as clerks or managers by mostly foreign capital. For this class of small landowners "catonism" (and anti-Semitism) was a reaction against their downward social mibility created by capitalism. Arguably, similar process takes place in any other social environment where the intelligentsia, or it substantial part, has its social origins in a rural society and if forced to urban life by capitalist modernization.
The other explanations is based on the notion of the intelligentsia as producers of intellectual commodity for the market. If the supply of such producers increases (e.g. as a result of access to higher education) , this will likely result in an increase of competition among these producers. In a highly competitive environment, such producers will likely use marketing gimmicks used producers of any other commodity - such as niche seeking. However, since most niches are already "claimed" by some producers, the trick is to break into a niche by delegitimating other producers occupying that niche and establishing oneself as a chief supplier of the intellectual commodity demanded in that niche.
In case of the broadly defined left/counter-cultural/radical niche, espousing "catonism" is a way of breaking into the niche. It stirs controversy, and thus generates publicity. It deligitimizes competition as being insufficiently committed to "the cause," and it helps establish oneself as a producer of the "real thing" as opposed to wussed-down version of the intellectual commodity sold in this niche.
Wojtek